ICE is bad for business, heat is bad for coffee, and sci-fi is bad for markets

Summary

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Podcast Summary: ICE is bad for business, heat is bad for coffee, and sci-fi is bad for markets

Podcast: The Indicator from Planet Money
Hosts: Waylon Wong, Darian Woods, Adrienne Ma
Release Date: February 27, 2026
Episode Theme:
This episode spotlights three unique economic stories reflected in compelling statistics: the impact of immigration enforcement on Minneapolis-St. Paul workers, the reasons behind skyrocketing coffee prices, and how a sci-fi blog post triggered real losses in the stock market. The hosts each bring an “indicator of the week” from current news to unpack these trends.

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Segment 1: Operation Metro Surge and Lost Wages in Minnesota

Main Point:
Waylon Wong highlights how an immigration crackdown had both human and economic repercussions for Minneapolis-St. Paul.

• Indicator: $106 million – Estimated wages lost by local workers during Operation Metro Surge
  [01:54] Waylon Wong: "My indicator is $106 million. That is the estimated amount of wages that workers in the Minneapolis St. Paul area lost during Operation Metro Surge."

• Federal agents’ presence caused fear and deterred people from going to work, school, or performing daily tasks (e.g., buying groceries, accessing healthcare).

• Human toll included violence: two people, Renee Good and Alex Preddy, were killed by federal agents.

• Data compiled by North Star Policy Action using payroll software from small businesses:

  • Number of employees fell almost 3%
  • Total hours worked dropped almost 2% [03:16] Waylon Wong: "Their analysis estimated that the number of employees fell almost 3%. And total hours worked fell almost 2%."

• Researchers used the median wage ($17/hr) for calculations, noting the estimate may be conservative for overall wage loss.

Notable Discussion:
"[02:24] Waylon Wong: '...fear of detention or violence kept people home. That means they missed school and work and they couldn't go out to get groceries or to access healthcare. So this crackdown caused a ripple effects and lost wages is one of them.'"

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Segment 2: Coffee Prices on the Rise

Main Point:
Adrienne Ma examines a sharp spike in coffee prices, bucking the trend of declining prices in other food staples.

• Indicator: $9.37 – Current price of a pound of coffee (BLS data), up 33% from last year [03:55] Adrienne Ma: "That is the price of a pound of coffee according to the BLS. And $9.37 is 33% higher than a year ago."

• Contrary to President Trump's State of the Union claim that “inflation is plummeting,” coffee stands out for major increases.

• Two forces at play:

  1. Climate Change – Hotter temperatures in major coffee-producing countries (Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia) harm supply, driving prices higher. [05:07] Adrienne Ma: "Climate change is really affecting the climates in some of the biggest coffee producing countries..."
  2. Tariffs – While Trump exempted coffee from tariffs in November, price relief hasn't filtered through yet.

• Coffee demand is “inelastic”: people keep buying even when prices rise. [05:48] Darian Woods: "Demand is inelastic. Right. People will still pay for higher prices of Coffee because they need their caffeine fix." [06:01] Adrienne Ma: "In the jargon of a coffee drinker, coffee is drugs, it is addictive."

Notable Quotes and Humor:

• [04:50] Waylon Wong: "I literally took a photo and texted it to my husband and I said, coffee prices are out of control."

• Creative solutions and banter about massive Dunkin buckets of iced coffee. [07:16] Waylon Wong (on buying 48oz iced coffee buckets): "I feel like that would give me a heart attack. Well, maybe if I spaced it out, right? If I didn't consume it all in one sitting."

• Joking skepticism toward coffee alternatives:
  [06:45] Waylon Wong: “Mushroom coffee. I feel like that's a scam.”
  [06:49] Adrienne Ma: “I mean, it ain't coffee.”

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Segment 3: Sci-Fi Blog and Stock Market Jitters

Main Point:
Darian Woods explores how a fictional scenario from a financial Substack led to real stock market volatility.

• Indicator: 1% – The drop in the S&P 500 on Monday, attributed to AI “doom and gloom” sparked by a sci-fi scenario [07:37] Darian Woods: "My indicator is 1%, which is roughly how much the S&P 500 fell on Monday morning amidst AI doom and gloom, which was partly thanks to basically a sci fi story posted on Substack."

• The story: Citrini Research, a top finance Substack, posted a fictional “macroeconomics memo” from a future “Global Intelligence Crisis” (AI-induced economic crisis, mass job losses, falling house prices, etc.) [08:23] Waylon Wong: "Is this a crisis where we all get dumber?" [08:25] Darian Woods: "In relative terms, we are dumber compared to the machines."

• While the memo was fictional, it provoked anxiety among investors already sensitive about AI’s impact on the workforce and economy.

• Other firms, like Citadel, quickly debunked the scenario, explaining that technology adoption rarely continues unchecked, and the initial sell-off was reversed. [09:10] Darian Woods: "...productivity improvements are usually a good thing for the economy, not bad even if there are pockets of disruption..." [09:29] Darian Woods: "They point out a few things, like that the adoption of a new type of technology usually peters out at some point..."

Memorable Conclusion:
"[09:41] Darian Woods: 'I do think this Citrini episode highlights just how uncertain it is, how rapidly advancing AI is going to affect the economy and how jittery investors are, and that they're jumping pretty strongly at any excuse to sell. Even from Syfy Substack posts... The pen is mightier than the sword.'"

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On the coffee price surge:
  [04:50] Waylon Wong: "Coffee prices are out of control."
• On substitutes for coffee:
  [06:36] Waylon Wong: "They're not going to switch to tea,"
  [06:49] Adrienne Ma: "I mean, it ain't coffee."
• On AI panic:
  [07:50] Waylon Wong: "Okay, so this is like a War of the World style panic."
  [08:23] Waylon Wong: "Is this a crisis where we all get dumber?"

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Summary Table of Key Indicators

| Indicator | Context | Segment Timestamp | |-------------------------|------------------------------------------|------------------| | $106 million | Estimated wages lost from ICE crackdown | [01:54] | | 3% / 2% | Drop in employees / total hours worked | [03:16] | | $9.37 | Price per pound of coffee (33% increase) | [03:55] | | 1% | S&P 500 drop (AI panic via blog post) | [07:37] |

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Closing Thoughts

This concise, insight-rich episode of The Indicator demonstrates how economic behaviors are swayed by politics, climate, and even speculative fiction. It drives home the interconnectedness — and vulnerability — of the economy to both real and imagined shocks.

Transcript

[Announcer]

Npr.

[Waylon Wong]

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong.

[Darian Woods]

I'm Darian Woods.

[Adrienne Ma]

And I'm Adrienne Ma.

[Waylon Wong]

And today is the day of the week when we talk about our favorite numbers from the news. That's right, everyone. It is independent of the week. So on today's episode, how Minnesota workers were affected by the administration's immigration crackdown,

[Adrienne Ma]

how coffee is getting very hot price

[Darian Woods]

wise, and how basically a sci fi blog piece jolted the stock market.

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[Adrienne Ma]

Indicators of the Week Waylon, do you want to go first?

[Waylon Wong]

My indicator is $106 million. That is the estimated amount of wages that workers in the Minneapolis St. Paul area lost during Operation Metro Surge. This $106 million figure was published this week by a Minnesota research institute called North Star Policy Action. And Aaron Sojourner helped crunch the numbers. He's a labor economist that we've had on the show before.

[Adrienne Ma]

So the Department of Homeland Security, they say they're ending this operation, right?

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah. DHS says it's withdrawing agents, although it is keeping a presence in the state. And we have seen a devastating human toll from Operation Metro Surge. Federal agents shot and killed two people, Renee Good and Alex Preddy. And fear of detention or violence kept people home. That means they missed school and work and they couldn't go out to get groceries or to access healthcare. So this crackdown caused a ripple effects and lost wages is one of them.

[Darian Woods]

So where do these numbers come from?

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah, so the researchers were able to get data from a company that makes payroll and scheduling software for small businesses. They were able to look at things like the number of employees working and how many hours they worked. And then they compared numbers in January and February with what would be considered typical Activity. And their analysis estimated that the number of employees fell almost 3%.

[Serval AI / BBC Interface Announcer]

And.

[Waylon Wong]

And total hours worked fell almost 2%.

[Adrienne Ma]

Okay, so employees fell 3%. The hours worked fell 2%. Those don't sound like huge numbers, but I'm guessing they add up.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah. And one important thing to note is that this analysis picked a single hourly wage, around $17 as a proxy for all workers. That is the median wage for food prep and serving employees in the area. And the researchers said that they're one of the lowest paid groups, so. So if you picked a higher wage as the proxy, you would actually end up with a lot more lost wages.

[Darian Woods]

Well, thank you, Waylon. Now on to Adrian. What's your indicator?

[Adrienne Ma]

Mine is sort of bouncing off the State of the Union address that President Trump gave this week. In it, he said that, quote, inflation is plummeting, unquote.

[Waylon Wong]

Is it though?

[Adrienne Ma]

Well, he named a lot of things which were not all correct. But to try and back up his statement, he did name a few household staples where this has seemed to be the case. Right. Like according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the prices of butter, chicken and eggs have decreased over the past year. And Trump had mentioned all of those. But as we know, the prices of many other staples are still going up, and some a lot more than others. Which brings me to my indicator of the week, which is $9.37. That is the price of a pound of coffee according to the BLS. And $9.37 is 33% higher than a year ago.

[Waylon Wong]

That is a huge increase. But also I've been feeling this. Cause just like a month ago or something, I went to the grocery store and I saw what just like a can of Folgers, you know, really basic coffee was selling for. And I literally took a photo and texted it to my husband and I said, coffee prices are out of control.

[Adrienne Ma]

Yeah, it's, you know, in all of the sort of major food categories that the BLS tracks in its consumer price index, this one seems to have had the biggest increase over the past year. And there are two basic forces at work here. Right. One is that this is part of a long term trend. Climate change is really affecting the climates in some of the biggest coffee producing countries, like Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia. And what researchers have found is that these countries have gotten hotter on average. And when temperatures get too hot, it hurts coffee production. And that challenge to the coffee supply means higher prices.

[Darian Woods]

And I imagine because in the jargon of economists, demand is inelastic. Right. People will still pay for higher prices of Coffee because they need their caffeine fix.

[Adrienne Ma]

In the jargon of a coffee drinker, coffee is drugs, it is addictive. And the other important factor to mention is President Trump's tariffs. It is worth noting that back in November, Trump issued an executive order exempting coffee from tariffs. But it will probably take time for that to actually show up in the price of coffee.

[Waylon Wong]

The best way to avoid this problem, this consumer problem, is to not drink coffee.

[Darian Woods]

Yeah. What's the price of tea? I don't think that's gonna be the price of tea.

[Adrienne Ma]

That's the. There's no substitute for coffee for the millions of people who drink it. Right. They're not going to switch to tea.

[Waylon Wong]

They're not going to switch to tea,

[Adrienne Ma]

which is also more expensive, by the way. They're not going to switch to kombucha or mushroom coffee, whatever that is.

[Waylon Wong]

Mushroom coffee. I feel like that's a scam.

[Adrienne Ma]

I mean, it ain't coffee.

[Waylon Wong]

I feel like it's like in the Civil War when they didn't have coffee so they would just boil like random things that grew in the ground and be like, this is coffee. That's what mushroom coffee feels like.

[Adrienne Ma]

I saw this article today that I thought could be another solution to the expensive coffee problem. You could just buy a ton of coffee at a time and try and stretch it out. Apparently Dunkin is selling a 48 ounce iced coffee now and you can buy it in a bucket with a handle.

[Waylon Wong]

I feel like that would give me a heart attack. Well, maybe if I spaced it out, right? If I didn't consume it all in one sitting. I mean, stick it in my fridge and drank it during the week. Is that what we're doing now?

[Darian Woods]

Sounds bad.

[Adrienne Ma]

If you want to live on the edge, you could just go for it.

[Waylon Wong]

I want to live at the hospital. Well, who needs caffeine to get your heart racing when you've got the stock market?

[Darian Woods]

That's right. My indicator is 1%, which is roughly how much the S&P 500 fell on Monday morning amidst AI doom and gloom, which was partly thanks to basically a sci fi story posted on Substack.

[Waylon Wong]

Okay, so this is like a War of the World style panic.

[Darian Woods]

Yeah, there are definitely parallels. I mean, everyone knew that this thing was fiction. Were the projections into the future real or not? That's the question. So this was a scenario posted by the financial research group Citrini Research. Citrini is a small company, but it's the number one finance substack newsletter. And they posted a fictional macroeconomics memo from a couple of years into the future and it details what they call the global intelligence crisis.

[Waylon Wong]

Is this a crisis where we all get dumber?

[Darian Woods]

In relative terms, we are dumber compared to the machines.

[Adrienne Ma]

So global intelligence crisis, as in like a global financial crisis but for artificial intelligence?

[Darian Woods]

Essentially this is their branding of this kind of economic crisis that might emerge in the next couple of years. So this War of the World style note wrote about things about AI we have heard before, like a picture of AI taking over more and more jobs and then it runs through all the links in the chain of the wider economy, like house prices falling, stock market crash, and that being part of this endless of companies losing money. And so they try to save money by replacing even more staff with AI.

[Waylon Wong]

Okay, so what's like your personal assessment of whether all this stuff will actually come to pass?

[Darian Woods]

So there's been a lot of debate about whether this AI apocalypse is sound like productivity improvements are usually a good thing for the economy, not bad even if there are pockets of disruption. Another financial firm, Citadel, even wrote a note poking holes in this Citrini scenario.

[Adrienne Ma]

Hmm, okay, like what?

[Darian Woods]

They point out a few things, like that the adoption of a new type of technology usually peters out at some point, and this kind of critique might have contributed to the stock market soon recovering all the value it lost on Monday. But you know, I do think this Citrini episode highlights just how uncertain it is, how rapidly advancing AI is going to affect the economy and how jittery investors are, and that they're jumping pretty strongly at any excuse to sell. Even from Syfy Substack posts the Power of the Pen the pen is mightier than the sword. This episode was produced by Angel Carreras with engineering by Kwesi Lee. It was fact checked by Julia Ritchie and Vito Emanuel. Cake and Cannon edits the show and the Indicator is a production of NPR

[Waylon Wong]

and look for the indicator on YouTube. Find this [e-mail] planetmoney.

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